Bus driver saves lives in spectacular train crash

Published: 20 Dec 2012 08:52 GMT+01:00

A Düsseldorf bus driver saved the lives of his three passengers on Wednesday evening, after his bus broke down as it was crossing railroad tracks - with freight trains approaching from both directions.

The two trains tore the bus to pieces at around 8pm, shortly after the driver managed to get everyone on board to safety. "It's a ball of metal," a spokesman for the fire brigade said afterwards.

One train was derailed, slid down an embankment and destroyed an unoccupied garden shed. No-one was injured in the incident, though the train drivers went into shock and were taken to hospital. "Thank God there were no casualties," a rescue worker told the Bild newspaper afterwards.

The police said afterwards that the accident could have been much more serious, as one of the trains was carrying butane gas, propane gas and other volatile substances. "All the containers are sealed," a spokesman said. "None of the dangerous cargo has leaked."

A joint clean-up operation took several hours. The track is only used for freight trains, so there is not expected to be any impact on passenger services.

The worrying thing here is the lack of safety 'best practice' that nearly led to a very bad accident. If trains carrying dangerous goods can be involved in such an accident so easily it makes one wonder how ofter we get close to disaster.

This was one of those rare cases of a pure accident. No one did anything wrong. Unfortunately. ALL mechanical things can and sometimes fail at the worst possible time. Such is life. There is absolutely zero possibility of removing all risk from living life on this little blue ball. The best we can hope for. Is to learn from these events.

Kudos to the bus driver for not doing the German thing. I.E. making a phone call to the health and safety department for consultation on the 300 page manual on what to do when faced with a train Vs. bus collision.

First I give thanks to God that there was not lose of life. Then I do as others ahve done, praise the bus driver for getting people to safty. Sounds like such a simple thing but where people are envolved nothing is simple. Also glad to hear the engineers were ok. Riding a train engine into a bus when there is no where for you to go has got to have been scary.

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